UPDATE: It looks as though the State of Hawai’s has learned how to play political chess with the birthers. TPM filed a public records request for emails and letters between AZ Secretary of State Ken Bennett and the state. The best ones are the those from the Deputy AG asking Bennett to provide a legal basis under AZ law for his request.

My apologies for not responding immediately. I have recently been away from my office a great deal, including today. My client, the Department of Health, has forwarded your request for verification of President Obama’s birth record to me. We need more information to substantiate that you are eligible to receive verification. Hawaii Revised Statutes, section 338-18(g), provides:

(g) The department shall not issue a verification in lieu of a certified copy of any such record, or any part thereof, unless it is satisfied that the applicant requesting a verification is:

(1) A person who has a direct and tangible interest in the record but requests a verification in lieu of a certified copy;
(2) A governmental agency or organization who for a legitimate government purpose maintains and needs to update official lists of persons in the ordinary course of the agency’s or organization’s activities;
(3) A governmental, private, social, or educational agency or organization who seeks confirmation of a certified copy of any such record submitted in support of or information provided about a vital event relating to any such record and contained in an official application made in the ordinary course of the agency’s or organization’s activities by an individual seeking employment with, entrance to, or the services or products of the agency or organization;
(4) A private or government attorney who seeks to confirm information about a vital event relating to any such record which was acquired during the course of or for purposes of legal proceedings; or
(5) An individual employed, endorsed, or sponsored by a governmental, private, social, or educational agency or organization who seeks to confirm information about a vital event relating to any such record in preparation of reports or publications by the agency or organization for research or educational purposes.

As the Secretary and I initially discussed, it appears that you might be eligible for verification of the record based on subparagraph (2), but we need to see what your authority is “to update official lists of persons in the ordinary course of your activities.” Will you send me a copy of your law that allows this, and will you send me information that shows:

(1) What list are you updating?
(2) Is it your normal procedure to update all entries on your list by requiring birth data verification?(3) Are you requiring birth data verification of all entries on your list, rather than just targeting one name on your list? (please provide evidence that you are doing so) (emphasis added).

You may address your response directly to me, and I will relay it to my client.

We all remember Crazy Eileen, one of the first birthers to go public. Well, Arizona, not satisfied with being the batshit crazy place it’s become, has just added a new ingredient to the mix – birtherism. Their Secretary of State has indicated he may not allow President Obama’s name to appear on the ballot because he’s not convinced he was born in the US.

The man in charge of running Arizona’s elections has gone to the birthers. Secretary of State Ken Bennett now says he’s not convinced Barack Obama was really born in the United States and so he is threatening to keep the president off the ballot in November.

Bennett’s comments came in an interview late Thursday with conservative radio talk show host Mike Broomhead on Phoenix station KFYI.

Bennett said he was following the lead of the state’s eccentric Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a fellow Republican who ordered an investigation into the president’s birth certificate last year and concluded the document released by the White House is a forgery. Bennett said he is now trying to get verification from state officials in Hawaii that the certificate is authentic.

Yeah, I’d base any decision I made on what Joe Arpaio says.

Sad thing about Bennett is that he’s the #2 person in Arizona state government, which means if anything happened to Gov. Terence Stamp Jan Brewer, he would become governor. Bennett claims not to be a birther but says he has a “responsibility as secretary of state is to make sure the ballots in Arizona are correct and that those people whose names are on the ballot have met the qualifications for the office they are seeking.” Sounds like a birther to me.

And he’s running for governor in 2014. Think he’s going to use this as a fundraising tool? Oh, I shouldn’t be so cynical.

Here’s the good part:

Broomhead, the radio host, pressed Bennett on what he would do if he didn’t get the right response back from Hawaii.

“If they won’t comply, if they refuse to comply with this, will you remove the president from the ballot?” Broomhead asked. “Will you exclude him from the ballot?”

“That’s possible,” Bennett said. “Or the other option would be I would ask all of candidates, including the president, maybe to submit a certified copy of their birth certificate. But I don’t want to do that.”

Now I wonder if Rmoney will be questioned about his eligibility to be on the ballot seeing that his father was born in Mexico and came into the US illegally.

Comments (13)

State officials in Hawaii have already certified it. Arpaio has no jurisdiction to overrule them. Bennett is just pandering, but ultimately Obama will be on the ballot, or Bennett will face federal charges.

let him not allow Obama’s name. Romney will have to take himself off the ballot as well or endorse birtherism. No net loss for Obama, and Arizona gets the embarrassment of not being able to vote for the president. fuck em.

All because Obama is black. If sperm count was a requirement, they’d be clamoring for more ejaculations. If stomach acidity had to be certain level, they be clamoring for more bile analysis. If being heterosexual was a disqualification, they’d all be supporting gay lifestyles.

They are so shallow. You know what’s fun, is to argue back, and like a bull dog, don’t stop, don’t give up, keep proving them wrong, over and over again. You see them panic in their eyes… when they realize you have them, you see their blood pressure rise to levels of crimson, but you can’t show mercy, you don’t give up. You tell them what Republicans have done wrong, and they will start screaming at you. Shrieking, as the interior of their head explodes,and begins a meltdown… You look them in the eye, and laugh.. and keep on. Extolling how a black president is doing everything right, and how white Republicans can’t do one thing that works. Just be nice. use the facts of what has happened to make that point.. The will eventually melt down into psychosis. Their brains will be of no more use…

I have used this method to completely destroy 7 Republicans so far. Nope, They won’t be voting… They are actually now, mental wards of the state.

It can be emotionally hard. You are actually taking the soul out of another human being, killing it, and forever onward, rendering them to exist as useless human shells. It’s war; you have to be tough, but it, can be done.

But that is how you do it. After the spell has lifted, they usually come back and thank you for it…

What I mean, is it is becoming increasingly obvious that evev if obama was born here, earlier in his career he mislead a number of institutions into believing he was foreign born. So obama started all this on his very own. P.S. You can talk about romneys dad being foreign born a million more times, it still wont make mitt romney a non us citezin. But if it makes you feel good, keep saying it, even though it is relevant to absolutely nothing

Be honest with yourself, Rusty. You know he’s American and you don’t seriously believe he tried to mislead people into thinking he wasn’t born in the USA. You don’t like the guy and you’re just looking for new ways to hassle him. Fake outrage about “misleading” people, that’s some irony there.

Well if i were ever to lose my mind and run for president I would have nut jobs like Rusty here screaming

See, altho i was born here and am a citizen by birth i was foreign educated. So when i registered for college i was classified as a fioreign student .
That alone would start the conspiracy theorists talking coz if its outside their. MArrow little mind and marrow experience they simply dont have the ability to open their minds to understand it.